Introduction to VIEW — Connection Course Series #1

If you think about it this way, it's like if you have a conversation with a person and at the end of that conversation they feel like they understand themselves better, they understand their business better, they want to continue to have conversations with you.

Welcome to The Art of Accomplishment, where we explore how deepening connection with ourselves and others leads to creating the life we want with enjoyment and ease. My name is Brett Kistler. I'm an adventurer, entrepreneur, and a self-exploration enthusiast I'm here with my co-host, Joe Hudson. Joe is a business coach who spent decades working with some of the world's top executives and teams, developing a unique model of human patterns that underpin how we operate with ourselves, each other, and the world. A good entry point into this model is a mindset called VIEW: Vulnerability, Impartiality, Empathy, and Wonder. Through understanding and cultivation, we learn to easefully drop into the VIEW state of mind, deepening self-awareness and increasing our connection with the world around us. To learn more about this podcast or courses, visit artofaccomplishment.com.

There are so many approaches out there for deepening communication and interpersonal skills, whether in the realm of the personal or the professional. These frameworks are often composed of learned strategies and techniques that offer prescriptive style adjustments that may be directionally correct, but most fall short of pointing to the root conditions that facilitate true depth in human connection. What if the key ingredient at the core of strong communication is not a strategy, but a state of mind? And how can we cultivate a more connective way of being through practice in our relationships as they are right now? These are the questions behind a practice we call VUE, which we'll be covering in this 5-part series. So Joe, what is VUE?

Oh, practically it's, um, A way to have conversations. It's a, a communication methodology that allows your conversations to be far more effective. And by effective, I mean more connected, more intimate, um, and more productive, from anything from sales to product development to conversations with your husband or wife or coworker. And it's particularly good at creating like I said, more connection. But also it's really good at embracing any kind of conflict or having difficult conversations. So practically, that's what it is. But realistically, it's, it's a state of mind. It's, it's communicating from a state of mind. Yeah. And practicing that state of mind.

Okay. What do you mean by realistically?

To answer that question, I have to really talk about how the whole thing came about. And the way that it came about was You know, I was an investor for a while, and I hired this consultant at some point, and this consultant had this amazing capacity. He had this capacity to do two things. One, he could sit down and have a conversation with somebody, and in a very short period of time, they could have a breakthrough where they would see themselves and the world differently, and in a way that gave them more freedom and more capacity. And he also had this great ability to sell. He couldn't sell what he didn't believe in, so he always sold stuff that he really cared about, but he could sell. And I would watch him sit with somebody who was absolutely the opposite of him in characteristic, and he would just ask questions, and he would end up selling whatever it is that he was there to sell, like, about 80% of the time, I would say. Generally had an 80% hit rate in both of these two kinds of conversations. And I would say to him, wow, how did you do that? And he goes, it's not the technique. You can't do this if you're trying to learn the technique. I've tried. He was, he was, this guy was a character, his name was Case, and he would just be like, ah, you can't learn it, it's not a technique. That's what he would say. And anyway, so Case got ill with cancer, unfortunately has passed away. But he wanted a very particular technique of healing that you can only find in California. So he came to California and he lived with my family. We became very close. We were very close before that. And I would watch him have these conversations every day. And I learned a lot through osmosis. And I had already been 20-something years of self-discovery. So a lot of it made sense to me. But when he passed, I was like, I know there's other people who can do this. And I knew like one famous person who could do, you know, could have a similar kind of set of conversations. And I was like, I'm gonna go find out what makes this tick. And so I went around the world looking for people, found people, and realized what they all had in common. And what they all had in common was VIEW, what acronym of VIEW. And I'm sure we'll get into for a second, in a second, but the, But the main thing is that it is the state of mind that allows it. It is not the technique. And so that's why I say realistically, it's the state of mind, because if you see this and view this as a technique, it won't work. And if you see it as practicing a state of mind that allows for the technique to work, if there's a technique even needed, there's definitely a technique that helps, then you can have a tremendous amount of success with it. And not just the success of like, wow, now I can have good conversations. It's success in like, oh, now I talk to myself in a different way. Oh, now I am in a frame of mind and I have a perspective that's more open, more free, more loving.

Yeah, and come to think of that, I've seen some of the aspects of this work in other places as techniques and they just never seem to land quite as deeply. And this state of mind concept seems to really be key here. Can you explain a little bit more about that?

Neurologically and physically, when we communicate, there's a lot of things going on besides what we say. There is our body language, there is the empathy that's happening via mirror neurons, there's intonation, there's microexpressions. There's so many things that are happening outside of language. And as animals with mirror neurons, we know that that's happening whether we want to admit it to ourselves or not. There's some part of us that has the awareness of this stuff, and they, they can't be faked. Microexpressions can't be faked. It is a representation of what's actually happening in your system on an emotional level and on a nervous system level. And so if you are using it as a technique, it can't work because the actual state of mind is going to shine through in these other non- in these other non-intellectual ways. And, and so if you think about that for a second, it's like this, um, it's a very cool thought process. If you, if you see people, they learn these great techniques that are out there, like nonviolent communication or something like that, and all of a sudden they've been weaponized. You just see them being weaponized, right? It's like you see all this communication training go south. I mean, if you've done communication training, you know you've done it, and then it's gone south.

Right.

And, and it's because it's the communication is a natural outpouring of your state of mind, and it can help you change your state of mind. But if you just focus on it, like I'm practicing a state of mind and that communication comes out of it, it, it's just far more successful.

Can you give us an example of that?

Yeah. So, uh, let's say your boyfriend or girlfriend wants your undivided attention. And you don't particularly want to give it to them. You want to watch, like, the soccer match, or you want to watch ER or whatever it is, but you decide, like, oh, they're going to be pissed if I don't, or, oh my God, I'm going to listen to them bitch forever if I don't. So then you give them your attention, but it's unwilling. It's full of resentment. It's frustrated, let's just say. And inevitably, you'll be paying attention to the person who asked you to pay attention, and then they're going to start getting frustrated. "Uh, you don't really wanna be here," da, da, da. And you're like, "Well, what the hell? You know, I just stopped what I was doing to give you the attention that you asked for, and now that's not good enough?" Like, this is, right? Who hasn't been in this conversation? That's how it starts. Yeah, exactly, that's how it starts. And it's because you're, it's obvious in everything besides your language that you don't want to be there paying attention. And so it doesn't feel good 'cause we know it. And that's what I mean. If the state of mind isn't, "Oh, I want to pay attention to you," it will never work. If the state of mind in the communication is, "I am trying to get something out of you," which is the antithesis of view, then it'll never work, no matter what technique you use.

And then sometimes we actually are duped by believing somebody's intentions that aren't true through, you know, whatever techniques they're using. So how does that work? How does it work when, uh, when somebody's state of mind doesn't shine through?

Their state of mind, maybe if they're like a sociopath, so they're not, they're not actually having a very particular kind of experience when, like, a very natural human experience when they're talking to you, uh, outside of something like that, then it's really two things that happens when you can't sense this from other people. One is that you have something you want to believe and they are giving you that. So we'll believe a lie if it rhymes with the truth that we want to believe. You see this in mass media all the time. It's like, okay, cool, they said that, and that, that, that rhymes with what I believe, so I'm gonna buy into that. Or salespeople, you know, or infomercials. Yeah, you could be rich and without any effort. Oh, I want to believe that. So you can— so that's part of the ways that we get duped, is that we're actually basically duping ourselves. And the other thing that happens is that if you study trauma— and I just don't, I don't mean like huge trauma, that also is true, like, you know, like a war trauma or a car accident trauma— but even like the minor traumas of always being criticized by somebody who's supposed to be nurturing you. When we hear somebody that reminds us of that trauma, then we're not actually hearing them, we're not actually with them, we're with the person or people who like helped us get that trauma into our bones. And there's this great data on that about how you're kind of not in the same time and space when you're moving to trauma, you know, and you see this with war veterans all the time in a major way, right? Where they think they're in the war, even though they're, you know, on their living room sofa. It happens in minor ways all the time. And so in those places, then we're not really aware of the person's intentions. So those are the two main ways it happens.

Yeah, like there are those times when somebody starts acting like a child and it's like, wait a minute, okay, they're acting the age they were when the thing that this is mapping onto occurred to them.

Exactly, that's exactly right. And it's why like you can learn really duplicitous sales techniques and they work, you know, 1 out of 8 times 'cause you're just basically fishing for the fish who wants that bait. And so you can do that and it looks like it works. But if you're authentic and you're actually in a deep care for the person, then it works a lot more effectively. And there's great studies on this of like, what are the best sales techniques? And you see that like, they did this with car salesmen. It was a, like, I think it was even used car salesmen. And they were like, who are the most effective car salesmen? And there was good car salesmen and really good car salesmen. And then there was these just unbelievably great salesmen, like, just in numbers. And the cases of those unbelievably great performers, it was because they actually cared about their customer. They saw it as a relationship. Those relationships came back over and over again, and they saw their job as to really help that person be in the right vehicle. And people knew it. And so it worked— like, the numbers worked far better than the whatever it is, 1 in 8. And they would, I think it was something like, you can't quote me on it, but it was something, something like 3 times the performance of an average car salesperson.

So what does VUE stand for?

Yeah, the acronym. It's V is the vulnerability, I is impartiality, E is empathy, and W is wonder. So that's what it stands for. Vulnerability, impartiality, empathy, and wonder. And that's really describing the state of mind, right? And there's some techniques layered on top of that, not much, and they're not necessary if you're actually in that vulnerable, impartial, empathetic, and full of wonder state of mind.

So it seems sort of like almost like ways to check that you're in the state of mind. If you are in the state of mind that these point to, then you will be having vulnerability, impartiality, empathy, and wonder.

Yeah, it's like that. It's also Like, they're great ways. I use these 4 ways to describe it because they're great ways to sink into it quickly. You know, so if you're not there, what are the best techniques? What are the best words, reminders to get you there quickly?

Yeah, that makes sense. Okay, so let's go through each of them. What do each of these mean to you?

So vulnerability is to speak your truth even when it's scary. That's what it is to be vulnerable, is to be very much yourself in your truth, even though you're scared of the result or the potential result. Impartiality is not trying to achieve an outcome for yourself or others. So it's like, it's far more like wandering than it is like goal orientation. Empathy is to be with a person in their emotions. And wonder is, it's a lot like curiosity, except for you're not looking for the answer. There's a lot more awe and wonder than there is in curiosity, but you're definitely not looking for the answer.

Vulnerability sounds a lot like weakness for a lot of people. And so how do you come up with this definition for vulnerability?

Yeah, I think the reason that people think being vulnerable is being weak is because they get confused with, uh, the difference between being weak and feeling weak. So when we are vulnerable, there's often a visceral response in our bodies, an emotional response, a nervous system response to like, oh, I'm gonna get weak. I mean, I'm being weak and I'm gonna get attacked. I think you're gonna get that when you're being vulnerable, especially for the first, you know, 10 or so times. So I think that's where that confusion comes from. Vulnerable, the reason I describe it this way is if you're not in your truth, you can't be vulnerable, right? So if you're not, if you're not in your truth, then you're— there's no exposure. If I'm pretending to be somebody else and you attack me for being somebody else, it's like, well, they're not really attacking me, they're attacking someone else.

It's—

so that's the truth part of it. And then the second part of it is even when it's scary. And so being in our truth isn't scary if we don't think we're gonna get attacked. Being in our truth isn't scary when we don't feel like somebody will judge us. Being in our truth isn't scary when we aren't scared of the consequences. And so vulnerability is being in your truth, even when we're scared of those consequences. And it's really the opposite of weakness. It's actually an incredible form of strength. And it's a very deep practice. Yeah. Like it can take you a very long way if you practice it. On a daily basis.

Yeah, it reminds me of the definition of courage, which is that courage isn't the lack of fear, courage is the willingness to feel fear.

Yeah, yeah, yeah, not overcome it, but feel it. That's so right. Yeah, that's it. So that's vulnerability.

Yeah, let's get into impartiality.

Yeah.

Which, I mean, it sounds impossible, like especially in business. I mean, theoretically, you could just be completely impartial in your entire life and how would you get anywhere that you want to go?

Yeah, that's the assumption.

There has to be some partiality, right?

Yeah, so there definitely is some partiality. There's no— like, if you really, really pay attention, every sentence that we have has some little bit of an agenda in it. So it's very asymptotic in that way, meaning that it— like, we can keep on getting less and less partial, but we can't become completely 100% impartial. But what I'm talking about here is the difference between getting in your car at a very specific time to get to your job at a very specific time and making sure that you get there and getting in a car and driving around following what feels great to follow in that moment and wandering kind of like the old-fashioned Sunday drive. That's what I'm talking about. So in that case, One is highly partial. It is, let's get in the car, let's get there, let's get there on time. This is the route I want to take, and I don't want traffic, and blah, blah, blah, blah, blah. And one of them is like, I'm partial in the fact that I want to take a drive, but I don't care where I end up, and I am here to enjoy myself. And so that's the thing. And the reason this is so important is because we feel when somebody has an agenda for us. And we resist it. And just tell a 2-year-old to do something, and the nature of them is, nope, right? So the more agenda that we have— and you feel with like a salesperson all the time, they really want you to buy, the less you want to buy. Even if you buy, you're like, uh, no, it's like, stop fucking trying to sell me, right? Um, that's what I mean by agenda. And with business, what's interesting is everyone thinks that you need to be highly partial to be good at business. You do have to have a clear intention. You do have to have a clear goal. There's no doubt there. How you get there, if you're really highly partial, it's gonna slow you down. And because there might be 10 ways to get there that are better or quicker or better for the people who are getting you there. So impartiality is actually far more efficient as a way of getting someplace in business. And the way I talk about or think about that often is, there is a river that we are on, particularly in business, where there's kind of where the customer wants to go, what's needed, what's wanted, where the employees want to go, right? And if you are reading that river and going with that river, then there's a lot less effort. And if you decide you're going against that river, if you decide that you are going to like not go with the flow, but go against the flow or counter the flow, it's a lot more effort.

Or build a canal, as you've said before.

Yeah, or build a canal, yeah. So that's the thing. So to be impartial, it works incredibly well. And, you know, I work with, as you know, some like executives running, you know, companies of thousands of people. And there's like this amazing click that happens when they realize like, oh, If I can be impartial in these ways, not give up my goal, but be impartial in how this thing happens and be impartial with people, I actually discover what is. And then I can use that information and use that data to create a better plan. And if I don't try to force a particular thing and we just agree on a goal, then all of a sudden things move so much quicker and have so much more efficiency.

Hmm.

It's the hardest one for people to get impartiality. It's the hardest one for people to get. Yeah.

It reminds me of an example you've mentioned before about trying to plan a whole basketball game.

That sounds like a good example. Can you tell me what it is? I've completely forgotten.

Oh yeah. Um, so like you have a clear goal, which is to put the ball in the hoop. Um, and if you try to plan the whole thing and you're partial to, no, the ball is going to go to this person now. But somebody is already in the way. So like passing it to them is clearly not a good idea. If you're not open to other options, then you're not gonna make it to your goal.

That's it, that's it. That's exactly it. Awesome, thanks for remembering that.

Empathy then. So some folks feel lost in empathy and they get lost in the other person and they lose their own goals, they lose their own wants.

Yeah, so empathy isn't that, you know, so I would say empathy is being with somebody in their emotions. So it's not avoiding their emotional state It's not trying to change their emotional state. It's not trying to make them happy. It's not trying to get them to an epiphany. Empathy is just like, oh, you're there and I'm with you. But it's also not being in it with them. It's not believing the story and saying, oh, it's true, your husband does that, your wife does do, and your boss, oh my God, they are taking advantage. It's not— it's also not losing your own emotional state. Yeah, it oftentimes will, will be so empathetic with people that whatever they're feeling, we're feeling.

Oh, you're right, I am the bad guy. Yeah, I'm terrible to you. Oh, shame.

Yes, that's like a perfect way that people are empathetic in a way that they've lost themselves. So it's not true empathy. True empathy is being with somebody, it's being next to them, it's like holding their hand, it's not losing yourself in them.

So then wonder then. And you said wonder and not curiosity, or as opposed to, or distinct from curiosity. Why not curiosity? Why wonder?

Curiosity is, I mean, it's a lovely thing. It's like, oh, what's happening over there? But there's something that switches in your physical state. Like if you just right now think to yourself, oh, what's happening for Brett in this conversation? There's kind of an open expansiveness that happens with that question. But then as soon as you try to figure it out, something constricts. Wonder is that open, living in the openness of the question with awe. And curiosity can be that, but curiosity can also become very focused on, need the answer, need the answer, need the answer. And so I'm pointing by using the word wonder to that being in the question without needing to get an answer. If you just stop and think about, like, what would it be like to be with a person who's just in the question with me, who's just, like, has wonder about what's happening with me, and they don't need me to solve anything, like, you can feel your whole system relax.

Yeah, that makes for a lot of ease in a sales conversation as well.

Right, exactly. If you're not in that ease and you're, like, focused on trying to figure out, er, then the person's mirror neurons are like, "I don't want to be around this." So in a way, all of this feels very process-based. Yeah, that's right. Yeah, it's interesting that you, you mentioned it. Recently I was watching a TED Talk on design process, and one of the things that they were talking about in this lecture was how if you're shooting for a result, you won't get it. That the thing you have to do is stay focused on the process and it's gonna go sideways. It's not gonna go well at times, but the output is consistently better than if you're going for a particular result. And so if you look at design theory, they all talk about this process and having like faith in the process and that it will lead you to the outcome. And if you leave the process, it won't lead you to the outcome. And this is the exact same thing. It's very much like living Principled. You're saying, here are the principles I'm living by because I know consistently if I live by them, it works out in the way that works for me and works for my deepest truth. And it's the same thing with this. It's that guy Case that I talked about in the earlier part of the program. He would get into these conversations, he goes, I have no idea what the hell is gonna happen. And he always pointed to that. And that's what he's saying. He's saying that I don't know what's gonna happen because if I did, or if I tried to make it happen in a particular way, it's gonna go to shit. So it's far better for me to just be in this process and trust the process.

So it sounds like this is a way to trust and flow with the self-organizing social and business dynamics that are already occurring and not get in the way of them through kind of narrow-minded constraint or management of the process or overmanagement.

Yeah, that's right. So an example is that, you know, for a while there, I directed short films. And one of the things that I learned was that if I wanted a very specific result from an actor, I'd get a horrible performance. Whereas if I could give the actor a clear objective then their performance just did really, really well. And it's a really similar thought process is that if you hold that objective and you trust in the process, then it works out. And that's not to say, this is an interesting part, 'cause a lot of people when they start learning Vue, they think, so then I'm not allowed to have an opinion or I'm not allowed to have a boundary. That's absolutely not the case. Those are really important things and they can be actually incredibly vulnerable things to say.. And in business all the time, I'll say, you know, what I'm not okay with is this. And I'll just lay that up front on the table. Like, this doesn't work for me. Here are the reasons it doesn't work for me. So how do we solve that problem? But then I'm impartial once I have that. And I'm even impartial as far as if someone says, why? What is it? What are you missing? Da da da. Like, I'm open to listening to that. But if I'm not convinced out of it, I'm not going to pretend that I am to be in a view conversation because that can't be. Because if I'm, if I'm not being true to myself inside the conversation, I can't be vulnerable. I can't be impartial either, for that matter.

And, and it's very hard to be curious, and the person's not doing business with you.

Yeah, exactly. And then, right, exactly. And then it's gonna go to shit eventually anyhow.

Exactly, right? Yeah. So you mentioned earlier that there are techniques. This is, this is all a process around a frame of mind that it emerges from, but that there are techniques. So there must be something to help point us back to this frame of mind.

Yeah, yeah, it's how and what questions. So that's the entirety of the technique is to ask how and what questions. There's a technique that's more for running meetings that I've developed as well, but the general thing is how and what questions. And the reason is, is because they're open-ended questions. So if you say, do you like ice cream? I get to say yes or no. If you say, how do you feel about ice cream? You might hear a story of my childhood and you might hear that chocolate chip is my favorite. Then you might hear about my dairy allergy, or you might hear how, like, I had a cow when I was a kid. Like, you have no idea what you're gonna hear. And so you get access to so much more data. Which shows that you're actually in wonder, right? If you only want to hear yes or no, you're not really in wonder. So it's how, what questions, which are mainly because they're open questions. Um, obviously there's who, what, where, when, and why. Um, and all those other ones are good, but they're just not very common. How and what are the most common ones. And we don't use why questions in the technique because of two reasons. One is most people, when they're saying a why question, they're in judgment. You know, it's, why'd you do that? There's not real curiosity there. It's just like, you should feel shitty and I want you to make an excuse for yourself, is really what that communication is.

Why wasn't this done on time?

Why wasn't this done on time? You know, it's like you're looking for them to make an excuse. You're already in a judgment place with them, typically, not always. The other reason that why questions don't work so well is 'cause they're the hardest questions to actually answer. There's somebody who said why questions are the questions that scientists can't answer. Answer. Like, why is the sun? Is a really hard question, and I would say unanswerable question. Whereas what makes the sun, how did the sun get there, those are answerable questions. So that's the other thing.

And, or at least there's a lot of information you can speak on about it.

Yeah, exactly. And the other thing is, um, yeah, so true. It's exactly— you get information, you get data. But the other thing is that usually when I talk about all this, somebody will say to me, yeah, but you can be judgmental with how, what questions. And yes, you can. You can be judgmental with anything.

What makes you such a dick?

Yeah, what makes you such a dick? But yeah, and the funniest thing is when I'm doing view, I might actually ask that question like, hey, what's making you such a dick right now? And if I say it from view, if I say it with vulnerability, impartiality, if I say it like, oh my God, this is kind of scary to say this to this person, but it's true for me that they're being a dick. And I'm actually quite curious. I have wonder there, right? And I don't really need them to answer in a particular way, or nor do I want them to not be a dick. And I actually can empathize with them. Then their answers can be— and it happens all the time in my world where I can say, what's making you such a dick right now? And they're like, laugh, or they'll say, oh yeah, I've had a bad day, or blah, blah, blah. It's not, what makes you such a dick?

Right, right. One of, one of those ways of asking it is open to all answers, like, hey, did you have a rough day? Like, what's, what's going on with you?

Yes.

And another one of them is just like, you better have a really fucking good excuse for this, you know?

Exactly. That's exactly it. Yeah. So that's— but why questions just imply it more, and it's more easy for the person on the other side to assume it. Than how or what questions. Also, how and what questions make you reframe questions in a new way, which triggers your brain. You know, it's like it kind of opens your neurology for a second when you say to somebody something like, what is it that's making you such a dick? It's not a way we'd normally phrase the question. And so it does something to them and to us.

Yeah. Yeah, I found after doing this work, there's been so many times where I've been in a conversation and I'm about to say something and it starts with something other than how or what. And then I pause, and then I find the thing I'm curious about, and then a question comes out, and the conversation goes in a totally different direction.

That's right. Yeah, exactly. That's what happens all the time. And it's not just different, it's also like far more meaningful and productive often. You know, I'll do this in a room full of like high-powered executives, and after we have our first few conversation, I'll say, so you just had a 10-minute meeting. Have you ever had such a productive 10-minute meeting? And that's like, that's the moment of realization that everybody goes through where they're like, holy crap, without an agenda, I just solved more puzzles or I just overcame more roadblocks than I have having an hour-long meeting with a direct report, pushing them to an answer.

Right. And there's a two-sidedness to it. There's the side that we spoke to earlier where The open-ended questions give you more information, more data, but on the— yes, on the other side, the person gets to be heard and speak their piece and speak to their wants and needs rather than checking a box of like, oh, which option was I given, vanilla or chocolate?

Exactly. And, and because of that, you can actually come up with a better solution for a problem if you're in that position in the conversation, but also Oftentimes that's all that anybody actually needs. Like, I see this happen all the time where, say, a manager wants people to go in one direction and the people don't want to go, and all they actually need is to be heard. And when they get heard, fully heard, they're like, okay, I'll go in that direction. That makes sense. We've all lived in that situation where we are basically being stubborn and no, I don't want to do it. And then when we feel fully heard, we're like, oh, okay.

Almost every complaint I've ever heard about a boss or an employee has had some form of, "I don't feel heard" in it.

Yeah, that's right. Tell me a time that you were at your peak productivity and you felt unheard.

Yeah, no.

Yeah, exactly. Nobody can.

Unless I was shutting myself out from everybody else and doing peak productivity with myself.

Right, which means that you weren't being productive in a team. That's right.

Okay, so let's swing back to the science around this. Tell me more about that.

Yeah, there's a lot of stuff out there in psychology and neuroscience and, you know, CBT, all sorts of different kinds of studies that support what's happening if you're in a view state of mind. But let's focus on, let's say, 2 or 3 of the main ones. One of them is just this simple thing. If you are under attack, you can't be curious, or if you're under attack, you can't learn because you're not curious. So we know this on many different levels. One, we know that if kids feel under stress, they don't do as well on tests, they don't learn as quickly. We know that if two people are in a fight, here's something you've never seen, right? One person's like, "You son of a blah, blah, blah, blah, blah, I hate you, da, da, da, and you stupid blah, blah, blah, blah, blah," and the other person says, Oh, you know what?

You're right.

Yeah, yeah, I get your point. We don't do that because it's neurologically not possible. And so that's, let's say, the extreme attack where we can never see somebody end up being curious or learning. And then there's just more and more subtle forms of attack. And the most subtle forms of attack are you just trying to push somebody into doing what you want them to do. Be happy. Stop crying. Just do this task. And the more that attack is there, the more you're trying to push somebody into something and be different than who they are, the less able they are to learn. So that's just a simple one. And if you think about it just this way, it's like if you visualize— if you close your eyes and you visualize yourself like running from a lion, and you're running as fast as you can, and it's like you can hear the paws hitting the ground, you know it's catching up to you, it's going to pounce on you at any minute, and it's a huge thing, you know you're dead, and it's coming, it's coming, it's coming, it's coming— here's what you don't do. You don't and go, oh, I wonder how much it weighs.

Hmm.

Right? And if you stop, if you actually do that exercise and you stop and you go, how much does it weigh? All the fear goes away. Which is why wonder is such an important thing to point to, because if you actually stop and say, what am I curious about? What do I have actual deep wonder for? Then the fear that you have dissipates. And if you're trying to push somebody into something, that's because you're in fear. That's what creates the drama of our life, is our incapacity to love people as they are. And we are scared of something, and so we start trying to push them around.

So this lion example brings up a good point that fear is actually useful, because if you, if you did stop running from the lion to think about how much it weighs, then you would get eaten, right? So fear is helpful, but it's just a lot of times in our lives we end up having a stress response that doesn't match the actual moment. So what it seems like you're pointing to with view is really cultivating a lower homeostatic set point for stress from which open-ended questions can emerge naturally and curiosity can exist.

That's all altogether true. And then there's also a practical thing, which is we are not going to be as open. We are not going to learn as much. We are not going to want to hang out with as much people who are scared in their conversation with us, therefore trying to control us.

And we'll trust them less.

And we'll trust them less. That's right. Because they're trusting themselves less. They think that they have to control something to be safe. And people who actually deeply trust themselves don't think that that's true. They know that they're safe no matter what. I mean, unless a lion's chasing them, right?

Yeah. And as mammals, we can detect that in other people a mile away. We naturally do that when we walk into a room and we find out who is the one that's most stressed out and scared and who's the one that's the most calm. And then we like subconsciously we put ourselves into sort of pecking orders based on this.

That's exactly it, yeah. And the predator smells it out and attacks the one that's— Exactly. So that's it. So that's that part of it. And then there's also this another part of the science is that there's, we make decisions emotionally. You know, if you took out our emotional centers of our brain, we stop making decisions. It would take us a half an hour to decide what color pen to use. It would take us, 4 hours to decide where to have lunch. There's a great book on this called Descartes' Error. And so we make decisions emotionally. So do people pay $200 for Nike shoes because they think that it's, it's like $200 worth of shoe? No, they're making an emotional decision. Do you buy this piece of software because you like the sales guy or the saleswoman? Do you buy this piece of software because it makes you feel safe? Do you buy this piece of software because you beat it up and you feel like, oh, they have answers for it? Well, the answer is that you are buying that piece of software based on an emotion, and you might use logic to figure out the most likely way that you would get that emotion. Like, I, I don't want to be yelled at by my boss, so I'm making an emotional decision to not get yelled at. And I'll use logic to figure out how to not get yelled at by my boss. But we're making emotional decisions. And so all the information in the world won't sell people stuff. If it was just pure information, then a Nike ad would be like, look at this shoe. It has 6 inches of leather siding and it has 8 holes on each side for the shoestrings. And like, that would be— oh, but it's not. It— we make the emotional buy. And so if I'm hanging out with you, you're hanging out with me because of an emotional experience that we have when we're together. If I am buying the product, it's because I'm having an emotional experience around the product. If I am wanting intimacy with you, if I would want to call you when I'm having a problem, if I if I wanna come home and see my parents, if I don't get offended when you tell me that you need space, all those things are based on emotions. They're not based on facts. And so that's really a main thing about VIEW because we're acknowledging, owning, and addressing the emotional part of a conversation.

Well, when making a decision, there's only so much logic you can actually do time constraint.

Correct.

And there's so much more to consider. I think what you're saying is that the, the emotions are a way that we, we make a probabilistic inference based on everything that's happened in our lives with a kind of a gist, a feeling in our body that helps shape which questions we even ask with logic to figure out the final details and then make a decision.

Yeah, there's that aspect of it, and there's also the aspect of it like, how many decisions have you made so that you don't feel like, let's say, week, how many decisions have you made to feel loved? Like, whole swaths of decisions are made over this kind of thing. And a VU conversation allows people to have all those emotions, feel safe in them, and to feel actually accepted and wanted and appreciated in that experience for who they are, which we all want.

Yeah. And it's being— it's important to just remember that everybody that you're in a conversation with, in any, you know, even in a stuffy business environment, everybody's making emotional decisions based on the things you just spoke to.

That's right, absolutely.

Okay, so tell me more about the payoff and the benefits of practicing view.

Yeah, this is a common story in my world. I will go into a team of people, typically it's Silicon Valley teams that I go into. It's not only Silicon Valley teams, but typically it is. And so you're talking about really smart programmers or really smart business people. And they're not getting along. And I remember this one particular example. The team had like a Navy SEAL, ex-Navy SEAL in it, and MIT triple graduate, you know, it was like that kind of a team of just super intense people, and they weren't getting along, they weren't being productive. And half day into a 2-day workshop, you know, the people who hadn't been able to get along were crying with each other. Because of all the pain and all the resistance in their system, they could let go when they realized, "Oh, the person across from me doesn't hate me, isn't trying to kill me, isn't trying to destroy my thing. We're just not communicating with each other clearly." And it was so amazingly beautiful. And then that team who had not hit their performance metrics in, I think it had been 3 years, hit their performance metrics that quarter. That's a payoff. It's like you get a tremendous amount of cohesion, not just between the team, but between you and the people around you. Right? And we all know that when we feel deeply connected with somebody, that we will go to the ends of the earth to support them, and they will go to the ends of the earth to support us. And that's really what we want from friends. And if it's a true support, it's not like a dysfunctional support. It's really what we want. It's what we want in our teams. So that's one benefit. Another benefit is that most people right now are like, oh, conflict, how do I avoid that? Or conflict, I'll just get through it. I'm just gonna push, go get in the conflict so I can get on the other side of it. When you really understand this frame of mind, conflict is an amazing thing because what happens every time is that conflict gives you better solutions than you had before it. You start looking for conflict, not looking for conflict like, Ah, here's a way I can pick a fight, but like, oh, there's a tension, let's go explore it. Because I know if I explore it from this frame of mind, all of a sudden I'm gonna have better solutions, better answers, better paths forward. It's also just a really lovely state to be in. It's like quite pleasant. You know, if you are in wonder, it's a more open and spacious feeling than if you think you know everything all the time. Like, think about the people you know in your life who know everything all the time. It's like, they don't look like they're enjoying themselves. If you think about people who are empathetic, not in somebody, but they're just like, oh, I can be here with you in your state, that's just a more open state. So it's just a really lovely place to be. And there's the efficiency that I mentioned, like with the 10-minute sessions. And, uh, yeah, the other thing is that what I noticed is when people really get into this kind of conversation and they start practicing it, like, this sense of loneliness just dissolves. And so many people in our society feel very lonely and very insecure. Not insecure like, I'm not good enough, but insecure like, oh my God, I might lose my job. Oh my God. And when they see this technique at work and they use it, and that frame of mind becomes kind of a steady state place what happens is they don't have that deep experience of loneliness. They know what it is to be alone, but they're not, "Oh my God, I'm all alone and nobody loves me." That's not happening. And it's not only that the loneliness starts to dissolve, but also this sense of security shows up. And the sense of security is there is because you realize that, like, no matter what your boss says, no matter what happens, you're able to have this conversation with them that actually benefits you and them consistently. And there's a deep level of security in that because we're not really scared of losing our job and not being able to make money. What we're really scared of is that we're not gonna be of value and that we're not gonna be heard and that we're not going to be able to be seen for what our value is. And so we're worried about losing our job. But if we know that every time we have a conversation, it's valuable to ourselves and the other people around us, whenever we want that, it's like, that's a deep form of security.

Right. Or if we're worried about losing our job because that would mean to us that we are not valuable anywhere. Doesn't matter if you lose your job, if you know you're valuable somewhere else and you could go do something that's, that you're valuable at.

Yeah, that's right. If you think about it this way, it's like, if you have a conversation with a person and at the end of that conversation they feel like they understand themselves better, they understand their business better, they want to continue to have conversations with you. That's how it works.

Right.

Yeah. And the thing is, you don't have to know shit to do that. You just have to ask really good questions and be vulnerable in it and to be empathetic in it and to be impartial in it and to be full of wonder in it. So it doesn't even require that you have skills. It just requires that you are having a conversation with them that allows the best of them to come out.

So yeah, to that, and I've noticed that Vu seems to be like this magical ingredient, this special sauce you can just pour on a workplace and it transforms relationships and teams. And how do you account for this?

Yeah, it's like, like I was saying, happened in that one company that there's— it— I've seen it so consistently happen, and it feels like magic. I think partially because often revenue increases because team cohesion increases, because sales methodology improves, because the products are more connected with the Customer product development conversations are better. There's all sorts of things that happen when people feel more connected and they're actually more in wonder and they're wondering what the right question is and they're wondering what the customer wants and when they're willing to be vulnerable about maybe the product sucks. There's all sorts of cool things, but really, when people are met with this, level of openness, when they're met with this level of care and nurturing, when they're met with this level of support, they really know it. And that is what relaxes something in them. And it allows them to perform at their best. Like we said at the beginning, it was, it's like, if you know you're being judged by a team, if you know that, if you know that the people in your team are not open to you, you're not gonna be at your peak, performance. But if you know that that's there, if you know that you can be accepted and the boundaries will be held and you feel safe in that environment, you're gonna be incredibly effective. Even if the outside world is like, man, you've got 2 months to solve this and you better solve it. If you know that you've got your team there with you, that's gonna get you your best performance and it's gonna get you your best performance in a marriage as well. Right? If I know that my wife deeply supports me, deeply cares about me, is open to my truth, is in deep wonder about what my experience is, is vulnerably sharing with me, that's what allows me to be the best husband, and vice versa. And that's really the magic of it. The magic of it isn't some technique or some state of mind. The magic of it is that it allows all of us— it creates the environment where all of us can be the best. That we can be, where all of us can live in our truth. That's what's the magic, is it's just like really good soil. And then the seed of who we are gets to sprout, and who we are is fricking amazing.

So, V.U.E.W.: vulnerability, impartiality, empathy, and wonder. This has been a great episode, Joe. Thank you very much. My pleasure, Brett.

Thank you.

Thanks for listening to The Art of Accomplishment. If you enjoyed what you heard today, please subscribe and rate us in your podcast app. We'd love your feedback, so feel free to send us questions or comments. You can reach out to us, join our newsletter, or check out our courses at artofaccomplishment.com.